Unionized workers at one of British Columbia’s biggest grocery chains have narrowly voted to accept a new contract and avert a strike.
Fifty-eight per cent of the nearly 10,000 retail grocery and warehouse employees working at 28 Superstores and three distribution warehouses in B.C. voted to accept the deal.
The Loblaw employees, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 247, initially held the vote citing contract concerns with “pay, fairness and equity.”
Union chapter president Dan Goodman has previously indicated that “inflationary times” are a concern for members, who have also been described by the public as “pandemic heroes.”
“We all see what groceries are costing these days, and our members are putting those items on the shelves,” he said in a Sunday news release.
According to the union, 97 per cent of members voted in favour of a strike in May after rejecting a contract offer.
Loblaw, Canada’s largest retailer, returned with a “substantially improved” offer, according to Goodman, featuring signing bonuses for all employees, an improved and unified wage scale benefitting 6,500 employees, and greater wage increases for long-term senior staff.
It also committed to creating 112 new full-time positions, “major” scheduling improvements for part-time staff, and expanded night-shift premiums.
If workers had rejected the offer, the union said it would have served a strike notice to the company, establishing the timing and nature of employee walkouts. Members would have hit the picket line, “effectively shutting down all BC Superstore locations and warehouses for an undetermined period of time,” it said on July 2.
Loblaw has said that if the offer was rejected, it had notified the union it will issue a lockout notice.
Global News has reached out to Loblaw for comment.
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